How to Make Pre Heresy Space Wolves

The long awaited Pre Heresy Space Wolves conversion guide is finally finished. Sorry to keep you guys waiting for this, but it's a pretty intense tutorial.

Not only will I be showing you how to make the standard Pre Heresy Grey Hunters, but also how to make the specialist troops in each unit from the Wolf Standard to the Wolf Guard waving his powerfist and combi-melta.

Kits Needed to Make Conversions
Space Wolves Boxed Set
Chaos Warriors Boxes Set
2 Melta Guns
1 Assault Marine Power Fist

Recommended Tools
1 Stanley Knife -with sharp blade!
1 File
1 pair of Clippers
1 Polystyrene Cement Glue

Please note that the Stanley Knife I recommend is made of METAL so you can grip it and give it some force to cut through solid parts of models. If your modelling knife is a tiny scalpel, go buy a real Manley Knife instead!

PS: I should mention now that the knife edge should be nice and sharp to cut through thick pieces of plastic and to cleanly cut away tiny details. Just be careful, because I cut my thumb quite a few times making these when removing the thigh armour. More on this in a bit.

Get Your Bits Together
Use the clippers to get everything you need off the sprues in double quick time, clean all the parts with your Stanley Knife and then glue all of the legs to the bases using the Polystyrene Cement Glue.

It's probably best to come back to these conversions a day later. You're going to be applying some force to these legs glued to bases and the last thing you want is the whole conversion coming apart in your hands.

Next you need to take the Chaos Warrior cloaks and dig out part of the plastic so that you can marry the Chaos Warrior torso to the Space Marine legs.

I tend to dig in at either side with my Stanley Knife, then cit lined diagonally across until I can cut the plastic out triangle by triangle...then scrape the rest out with the knife blade.

Now take the Chaos Warrior torso and legs and chop them in half.

I lay the model down on my hobby table and score along where I want to cut with the knife before cutting to get a nice straight line.

Then you can apply the pressure, rock the blade back and forth a little and eventually the blade will go through.

It's worth taking a moment to tidy up the edges where you've cut as you'll be using all this bits again very soon.

Now you've got to cut off the thigh armour from the Chaos Warrior legs. This is not easy!

So what you do is score a line across the top of the legs which outlines where the thigh armour piece should be in all that plastic. You them cut downwards very carefully, using the lines of the detail around the armour piece to help cut straight and get it out.

I find rocking the knife back and forth in your hands helps to get the metal blade through the mass of plastic.

As you can see, I use the middle of the blade because this gives me more control.

I've cut down as far as I can without cutting through the knee, so I'll come down with the knife in a straight line above the knee to get the piece of thigh armour out.

You'll be so relieved when you've done it. Then you realise you've got to do the other one!

This is actually quite tiring, so I don't recommend doing this late at night, especially in case you slip and cut yourself.

Clean these up and make sure they're flat on the side you're going to glue to the Space Marine legs.

Chop the backside off the Space Marine legs and you're ready to start assembling the main body of your Pre Heresy Space Wolves.

It's also worth removing any detail from around the upper parts of the Space Marine legs which could get in the way of the thigh armour sticking reasonably flat. Some of the Space Wolves legs have little trims at the top. Be sure to remove these.

With a head, backpack, bolter and hands you've got everything you need.

Be sure to clean all parts of any flash.

Also, cut the sword out of the Chaos Warrior hand and the grip out of the bolt gun.

You can trim the top of the hand at an angle to be flat so that the bolt gun sits better on the hand.


Wolf Standard Bearer
While you'll quickly get into the swing of converting Pre Heresy Space Wolves, let's focus on the unit specialists, starting with the Wolf Standard Bearer. He is probably the easiest after all!

Start by gluing the two halves of the Chaos Warrior torso and cloak together. Once this has dried, glue the torso down on top of the Space Marine legs.

Note how I've used the knife to smooth down the tops of the Space Marine legs to make sure the Chaos Warrior thigh armour fits properly.

You may also find that parts of the cloak make contact with the back of the Space Marine legs. It's worth gluing these together for extra strength.

You can glue the pieces of thigh armour onto the underside of the ride of the Chaos Warrior torso over the Space Marine legs. Obviously, glue the thigh armour to the legs as well.

Now leave to dry for a day. I'm serious. Too many times these things have come apart in my hands while I've been gluing heads, arms or backpacks on!

Here's a Wolf Standard I made earlier. I used the Chaos Warrior standard pole arm and chopped the pole down and also cut it so that it would fit the back of the Wolf Standard you get in the Space Wolves boxed set.

Obviously, I cut the standard pole from the Wolf Standard so the new one could slide in.

I also chopped the top off the Wolf Standard and stuck an enemy skull on top instead. All my Pre Heresy Grey Hunter packs have a different enemy skull on top. I recommend acquiring these from your friends armies!

Glue the standard together and make sure it's dry before gluing the standard arm to the body and the bottom of the pole to the base of the miniature.

Then add a head, a back pack and a left arm and you're done!

And here he is fully assembled. All pretty straightforward stuff. I also glued the back pack to the back of his cloak. But if you're very pedantic about fitting, you can trim the fur on the coat with a modelling knife to get a smoother, flatter fit for the backpack.

You should always use the legs with the wolf pelt from the Space Wolves box as this makes the model stand upright. If you use any other legs, they tend to make the model too short to hold the Chaos Warrior banner pole!

You'll probably want to take a break after making this. I know I did the first time around. Go get a cup of team, you deserve it -especially when the next one is a little harder.


Mark Of The Wulfen
Instead of having a full on furry werewolf with fangs and claws, I fancied more of a Beserker look to my Grey Hunter with the mark. So I chose the 'big hair' Space Wolf head and acquired a couple of barbaric axes from the Beastman Gor Herd (link) boxed set.

If you're going to be making a lot of Grey Hunters with Mark of the Wulfen, then it's worth buying this box. Otherwise I'd recommend just giving him a couple of Chaos Warrior axes and be happy with that.

So it's the same kind of conversion again, except we've got big axes and a head that's designed to glue on to a flat surface, not into a collar.

Cut both Beastman and Chaos Warrior axes off at the top of the hand. Make sure you do this from the same direction, because the curvature of the knife cut will ensure a good clean fit.

This is also the best place the glue the axe on, because it has the largest surface area to attach to against the top of the hand. No pinning needed here!

Rawr! Here he is all built and ready to lop off some heads. I'm particularly happy with the posing on this one.

The head is a bit of a nightmare to glue on with polystyrene cement. But once it's dry you can push some Green Stuff into the gap between the bottom of the head and cup that the head is supposed to sit it, then smooth it flat with your finger.

Once you've got the Grey Hunter with the Mark of the Wulfen out of the way, the next Pre Heresy conversion should be simple! All you have to do is accommodate a Power Fist.


Grey Hunter with Power Fist
I used a Blood Angels powerfist for this conversion, but you can easily use the powerfist supplied with the Space Wolves boxed set.

Same set up again, just with different arms. The only real conversion work how is the powerfist.

Simply figure out how you'd like to position it and take it from there. Although I'd admit the positioning is pretty restricted.

What I do is cut just above the elbow as this forms a nice fit into the Chaos Warrior torso where a hand is mean to fit.

Even though there's a 'double' armoured elbow when you do this no one seems to mind or to notice. But if it really bugs you, simply glue a purity seal or other detail flowing across the Chaos Warrior elbow.

I quite liked the chunkiness of this powerfist and glued it against the body for maximum strength.

I often leave the details on powerfists and other weapons, but in some cases when the logos are't appropriate for Space Wolves, simply cut/scrap them off with the sharp edge of your Stanley Knife.

It's probably worth mentioning that you should always glue the thigh armour on before you attach any of the hands. Sometimes you find that the hands prevent you from getting the thigh armour on!

Once you've mastered all of these, it's time to convert the Wolf Guard with powerfist and combi melta -and this is when things get really involved.


Pre Heresy Wolf Guard
Everything you've done so far has prepared you for this conversion. I can appreciate that these models aren't easy to make and this one is probably the most fiddly.

Same legs, torso, etc as before. But this time you will need an Assault Marine powerfist, the Chaos Warrior champion cloak, the Chaos Warrior champion sword arm, a melta gun and a storm bolter from the Space Wolves box.

You'll need a spare bolt pistol from the Space Wolves box too.

I also recommend using the Space Wolf legs with the wolf pelt down the middle. Due to the default pose and the large combi weapon, this model tends to look best stoop up straight and pointing for the rest of the pack to advance.

To start with we need to cut off all the rubbish from the Space Wolves storm bolter.

Cut the arm off at the wrist, then start to cut the gun away from the hand by cutting across in front of the knuckles.

Then cut in a straight line between the top of the hand and the flat bit of the gun that sits on the hand and wrist.

Finally, carefully cut away that silly tooth stuck to the top of the gun sight. Now we've got something we can work with.

Now cut the barrels off the front of the Storm bolter, but make sure you leave the little rectangular bit that sticks out at the bottom. This helps in making the conversion strong later.

Take the bolt pistol and using a sharp knife shop the barrel and sight above it off in one clean cut.

You should then be able to glue this to the front of the storm bolter as a single piece. Make sure it's aligned to the left hand side of the storm bolter, because you have to leave room for the melta gun barrel.

Now take the melta gun and chop the barrel off the end. Then trim the end until it smoothly joins to the front of the storm bolter.

Now you have 1 perfectly good combi-bolter. Leave to dry thoroughly before trimming a Chaos Warrior hand to hold the gun. Attach the gun to the hand and leave to dry. Because the gun is relatively heavy the hand and gun need to be fully dry before you can glue the hand holding the gun into the Chaos Warrior torso. Now for the powerfist.

Take both the Chaos Warrior champion arm and the Assault Marine powerfist and cut them below the elbow.

You need the top half of the Chaos Warrior champion arm and the bottom half of the Assault Marine powerfist.

Then powerfist will need a bit of trimming to keep all the cables, which you'll be pleased to discover glue straight on to the Chaos Warrior champion upper arm almost perfectly!

Here you go. Doesn't that look good? Now all you need to do is glue it into the Chaos Warrior champion torso for a perfect fit.

Actually the kit doesn't go together that well, so once dry you may want to plug the gap with some Green Stuff.

Next up, glue the hand holding the combi-melta in place, glue on the head, backpack and you're done!

Now go have a nice long rest, you earned it.


CONCLUSION
And that's how it's done.

As you may have gathered, these are time consuming, energy draining conversions. So many people will only reserve this level of dedication for their characters. Meanwhile other people with more time, money and enthusiasm will go the whole hog and convert their whole army to look like this.

Whatever you decide, that's up to you. But hopefully this guide has given you all the essential conversion tutorials you need to make your own Pre Heresy armies.

Thanks for reading and if you thought this article was helfpul, then please share it around the web and let others know about it.